Of this Metternich was a
striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a
whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case,
but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to
that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed,
previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was
governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew
wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain
memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card
again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he
suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given
his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would
have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to
regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good
player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my
whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps,
than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of
omission.

He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is
aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and,
in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself
upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance
to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time--let us
say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,'
which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins,
though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string
of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes
it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he
modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;'
though the result would have been exactly the same had he played
blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser
'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial,
gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just
defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if
fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as
they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as
well as other people.

Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; the player